


Fear

by iduna



Series: Whose Stupid Idea Was This, Anyway? [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 08:59:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13807896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iduna/pseuds/iduna
Summary: Just a conversation between the Herald of Andraste and the Commander. About the fear that divides.





	Fear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IncreasingLight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncreasingLight/gifts).



> I'm posting this before it's betaed... I wanted to do it before I lost my nerve. This is my first solo posting. May the Maker have mercy...

“You’re afraid of me.”

Cullen stops, looking around in the semi-darkness of the Chantry in Haven. Sitting on a bench, facing a small statue of Andraste, he sees the back of the Herald. Her long brown hair is neatly braided down her back. Like everything else about her, it is tightly controlled, no hair out of place, nor is any disarray permitted. 

He didn’t expect to see her here, this late at night. She hated the Chantry and didn’t consider herself Andrastian at all. Why was she here, seemingly praying…

“You are afraid of me, and I am afraid of you. Does that bother you at all?”

As he looked at her unmoving back, Cullen struggled to respond. He didn’t want to cause offense, and he didn’t really want to admit his fear. Yes, he was afraid. She was a mage, and he had seen the damage mages could do. She had done none of that, yet, and she was willing to help them restore order to Thedas. Admitting his fear could put their ability to work together in jeopardy, yet… She deserved his honesty. 

Almost as if she were reading his mind, she continued. “It’s okay to admit it. The Chantry taught you to be afraid, and when they succeeded, they gave you lyrium and blood lotus to make sure you didn’t stop fearing. They wanted you to be afraid, because it’s how they controled you. If you started seeing mages as people, you wouldn’t be so willing to kill us. They couldn’t let that happen.”

Cullen was frozen in place. He wanted to run and hide from this fundamental fact. He’s managed to hide from it since he was 18 and took his first dose of lyrium. He built a wall with his experiences in Kinloch and Kirkwall. He wanted to be a better man, to change, but this isn’t how he thought it would happen. 

Never had he imagined that a tiny mage from Ostwick would see him so clearly. No, he didn’t want it to happen like this. 

“We have a problem, you and me. I can’t trust you, because you’re afraid of me, and I know that there is nothing I can do to keep you from being afraid. I’m not a maleficarum, nor am I an abomination. Yet to you, there is always the possibility that I will become one, so you are afraid. The only way I can prove I’m none of those things is to not become one, yet that will never be enough, will it. You fear the possibility, not the actuality. I can’t overcome that. Ever.

“I don’t fear you because you’re a Templar, though. I fear you because you fear me. I fear because men like you, fearful men, sought to prove they have power over me by hurting me. They’ve done… things, because they could. They knew that the Chantry would believe them; blame me for everthing. I’m a mage, I am all things terrible. Whatever they did could be explained away. I deserved it. Isn’t that right, Commander? Isn’t that how it works?

“Even the Templars that wouldn’t do those things looked the other way. They did nothing because they were afraid. They were afraid of me, afraid of making waves, afraid of… I don’t even know. It was just fear, running amok, unchecked, and unexamined”

Cullen lowered his head, ashamed. He considered himself a good Templar, he didn’t do those things. He couldn’t deny that he did nothing as others did them. He hadn’t questioned their right to do them.

He hoped she’d stop. He hoped that she would just let this lay - let him process this in peace, but she wasn’t done. 

“Meredith Stannard didn’t do what she did because she hated mages. Meredith Stannard did what she did because she was terrified of mages. She allowed what she allowed, because mages needed to know their place, and if they feared her, and you, they would keep to it. That was her mistake, you see, and yours, by the way. By making the mages less than people in your eyes, you made it possible for them to see themselves that way.”

“No,” Cullen said weakly, finding his voice for the first time. “That’s not…”

“Of course, that’s how it was, Commander,” the Herald snapped. “Did you really think that your actions would have no consequences? Did you think that just because the Chantry refused to do anything that there was going to be no price to be paid? You treated the mages like animals, like Maleficarum, then you were surprised when that’s what they became. Maferath’s balls, how does that make sense to you?” 

Put bluntly like that, Cullen had to admit that there was a certain amount of sense there. He was also very ashamed that he had never thought of it that way. During training, his teachers always said that they expected the best of the trainees, and since they did, the student would rise to meet the expectations. It’s the reasoning he used when training the Inquisition’s soldiers. It hadn’t occurred to him that the opposite might also be true. 

“Do you understand our problem now, Commander? You see me as an abomination just waiting to happen. If I don’t turn, you can say it’s only a matter of time. If I do, you were right all along. There is no way I can win. You fear me, and that fear makes you a danger to me. I can’t make you fear me less, only you can do that, and you can’t do that until you understand. It gives me no pleasure to have this conversation. You were never going to see it on your own, though.”

The Herald, her back still to him, let out a small, angry laugh. “I want to be the Herald of Andraste even less than you want me to be, Commander. Before you came in, I was thinking that I would have preferred dying in the explosion. This… This is a nightmare. I have never had the luxury of what I wanted, though. Hopes, dreams, desires… Those things are wounds waiting to happen, things I can never afford.

“I cannot prove that I’m not something, so if you’re waiting for that before you let go of your fear of me, we’ll be locked in this forever. We don’t have that kind of time.”

With that, the Herald of Andraste stood, turned, and faced the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces. Her blue eyes met his golden ones, boldly and fearfully.

“I am tired of being afraid of you, of Templars… I’m just tired of being afraid. Aren’t you, Commander?”

She turned her back on him and walked toward the door. Her back straight, her shoulders squared, her spirit unbroken. Her words, “I’m tired of being afraid…” echoing through the empty Chantry. Maybe it was just a trick his tired brain was playing on him, but it mattered little. The Herald had the courage to face what she feared without flinching. 

Cullen Rutherford would do the same.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this at all. If it touched your heart or made you think, just give me a little encouragement in the form of a kudo or a note. Please... 
> 
> This is a gift for my good friend IncreasingLight. She knows why. I love you, you know.


End file.
